Its an interesting dilemma - he's playing enough gigs to need the upgrade to more gig-worthy equipment but most of its smallish venues and not very loud, as his main trio is into "improvised Japanese psychadelic jazz" (now that's a narrow genre!). They do a lot of 'dinner music' gigs for the ambassador, the embassy, the Japan/Australia society etc. But he does play in a bluesey jazz band and occassionally with a blues/rock band so he still needs some firepower.

He is facing the battle of volume vs tone vs budget. He gets irritated that there are so many more options for amps for his brother's guitar. Very few comparable bass amp bargains. Seems it will take us a while to pick the best value head and then get the best value cabs - looks like we've got lots more eBay searches in front of us.

Where do you live?I use a 250 watt Fender amp. It is plenty loud for our bar shows but the mountain June Jam found me a bit small. I had the input volume on 10 and the output at about the same. I and the band could hear it pretty good but it did not punch thru the crowd, there was sound reinforcement. My problem was hearing it over the yells, whistles and hollers coming up from the audience. It's only once a year so far. We do play some quieter shows which I hate but the money is okay. I can lower my volume just find in those situations and I can turn it up for the rowdy bars but the outdoor gigs are a challenge. I'd like to clarify about myself playing the quiet gigs. I don't want to play them, they are boring and they rob the band of it's full punch. Skinny is the boss and he does them for the money. I feel like a musical prostitute when we play those places. I'd just as soon not and wait for the rowdy joints. I don't like it so loud that my head rings but there is a point where the volume is so low the balls are taken right out of the song. Just my preference. Good luck with the amp hunt.

Trace Elliot, right on. I considered the 500 watt combo, the skinny one. Post right here from time to time and let me know how the tone goes and how easy or hard is it to dial in. I'm still curious about that 500 watt skinny job but at the time, as is now, $900.00 was a lot of cash to come up with. Keep me informed, I am curious.